Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wireless communication in bilateral hearing prosthesis systems.
Related Art
Medical device systems have provided a wide range of therapeutic benefits to recipients over recent decades. For example, a hearing prosthesis system is a type of medical device system that includes one or more hearing prostheses that operate to convert sound signals into one or more acoustic, mechanical, and/or electrical stimulation signals for delivery to a recipient. The one or more hearing prostheses that can form part of a hearing prosthesis system include, for example, hearing aids, cochlear implants, middle ear stimulators, bone conduction devices, brain stem implants, electro-acoustic devices, and other devices providing acoustic, mechanical, and/or electrical stimulation to a recipient.
One specific type of hearing prosthesis system, referred to herein as a “bilateral hearing prosthesis system” or more simply as a “bilateral system,” includes two hearing prostheses, positioned at each ear of the recipient. More specifically, in a bilateral system each of the two prostheses provides stimulation to one of the two ears of the recipient (i.e., either the right or the left ear of the recipient). Bilateral systems can improve the recipient's perception of sound signals by, for example, eliminating the head shadow effect, leveraging interaural time delays and level differences that provide cues as to the location of the sound source and assist in separating desired sounds from background noise, etc.